Union Never Neglected Workers' Interests In Negotiations

To the editors:

In an article that appeared on May 7 (News, “Guards Say Union Sold Them Out”) a number of statements and charges were made concerning the impact bargaining the union carried out to negotiate severance packages for our seven union members facing layoffs on June 30, 2004. Some of those charges and complaints touch on my conduct in leading the talks on behalf of the union. I feel the record should be set straight.

In the summer of 2003 while we were in the middle of contract negotiations the University informed the union that they meant to layoff all seventeen remaining union guards. I asked for the help of Progressive Student Labor Movement and an e-mail campaign was mounted along with a public demonstration in the front of Holyoke Center. Those actions caused the University to reconsider their position. The Union conducted impact bargaining concurrently with the main contract negotiations. In the end, we settled the main contract and the university presented to the union a proposal for severance packages, also we were able to move several guards to the parking department. Further, the police department made work for the remaining seven guards. These negotiations were to my mind adversarial and conducted from a position of weakness by the union due mainly to the fact we were taken by surprise (and therefore had to improvise a response), coupled with obvious personality conflicts. Some guards took these severance packages and went to work for Security Systems Incorporated (SSI), a non-union contractor, who could have fired them at anytime. As it happens, they are still working, at the same sites, covered by the parity agreement, without any difficulty. Some took the early retirement and left the union and the university.

Last winter I became increasingly aware that there were problems with Chief Riley’s budget. I approached the university to ask what their intentions were towards our seven members in light of the Chief’s budget problems. The response was that it looked bad. I was asked to meet with the Chief, James LaBua, and Polly Price early in March. John Hamilton, vice-president of the union, and I met with the university representatives. The Chief told us how his budget was cut by three-quarters of a million dollars and that our seven members and some other workers at the police department would be laid off before the end of the fiscal year. The original plan seems to have been to give the seven remaining guards a last paycheck and a pink-slip, especially since during the negotiations in the summer the university had told us no severance packages would be brought forward again. I told the University that the union wanted to enter into impact bargaining to mitigate the blow to our members. Both sides agreed to talk a deal.

At no time did the union negotiate the jobs away; the jobs were gone due to the loss incurred by the police department budget. During the negotiations the union took a proactive stance asking for components that had not previously been offered to us. We also made it plain that our members should have the ability to be placed in open positions at the University if they are qualified. We got these components as well as a guarantee of work with Allied and an undertaking that any member who goes to Allied will be maintained at Harvard sites covered by the parity agreement, just like the guards who went to SSI last summer.

The conduct of the Harvard negotiators was straightforward; there were no counterproductive personality conflicts. I believe the desire to lessen the impact of the layoffs on the seven people involved was kept central to the talks. The only people denying the guarantee of work are individuals who had nothing to do with the talks and have no knowledge of what was discussed.

I feel that the packages we achieved this March are more beneficial to the workers than those bargained in the summer of ’03. I am not sorry to have worked hard to provide to the seven members an alternative to one last paycheck and a pink-slip. I have always done my best for the union and will continue to do so.

DANIEL MEAGHER

May 11, 2004

The writer is president of the Harvard University Security, Parking and Museum Guards Union.